Babies. Babies. Babies.

WARNING: I should forewarn you. This post is about sex. And I have to use some sexual terms to discuss how babies are made (or not made). So, there might be some words here that could embarrass you or set off your work filters. So, you might want to avoid this post altogether. You've been warned!

One of the curious side-effects of joining Facebook is that you re-connect with your old high-school buddies and get interesting updates on who is losing their hair and who is getting fatter in their old age. (Luckily for me, I have both covered pretty well.) But beyond that, you also see who has married and who has begun having babies. Checking in with these people, 15 years after I graduated, these babies aren't newborns and preemies. They're two and three years old and are developing into little people.

And it makes me think about my own life and my own lack of baby.
And if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

For as long as I can remember, a baby was a thing to be avoided at all cost. A formless fear that peeked over the edge of the bed-covers at every intimate encounter. The little, diaper-wearing bogeyman. Just as scary as the thread of STD's.

Wear condoms! Or you'll have a baby!
Get your girlfriend on contraceptives! Or you'll have a baby!
If you're monogamous and you've slacked up on the condoms, pull out! Or you'll have a baby!

I'm sitting here and thinking about all the crazy places I've let my own orgasms fly - OTHER THAN in a vagina. Off a building roof. In a hole in the floor of a summer camp shed. In a wheatfield. Inside t-shirts, panties, neckties and once - a Superman cape. (Long story. Don't worry. I threw it away.) I remember, very vividly, the idiotic, half-collapse/ half-scramble that I've undertaken to avoid cumming inside a girlfriend. Better to collapse on the floor, sending the cat running, than to allow one spatter of my unstoppable man-seed near her womanly womb. So much effort put into avoiding this one particular fear - having a baby!

And I can't figure out how I feel so differently about this, compared to my former peers. Did they feel the same way that I did? Did they care less? Were they saying, "Eh. If I have a baby, I have a baby" and letting their jizz fly? Or were they trying to be careful, trying to avoid a baby, but UH OH - that orgasm just felt too too good to pull out and you fired your proton torpedoes into the wrong exhaust pipe and - blammo! You've got a rapidly expanding Death Star that doesn't explode for another nine months. And then, if you live in Kentucky and any of your parents are Christians, you better marry that Little Lady Death Star or risk getting your ass force-kicked by Darth Father-In-Law.

I wonder how many of these babies are intentional and how many were accidents.

I know it doesn't matter, in the long run. Each child is loved and welcomed into their families. But I wonder how many of these children were unplanned and how many were planned? And I wonder if unplanned pregnancies is just some unspoken epidemic that is going on, but that we don't talk about. Or if the voo-doo of religion has ill-prepared the young people of our country to think ahead and act responsibly and wait to have children until they can properly support them.

I recognize that having a baby changes EVERYTHING. It's huge.

No more farting around at "fun jobs". You have to work your ass off to give that baby (and baby-mama) health care. You have to bring home the paycheck and make sure the car is running smoothly and shop for birthday presents, Christmas presents, clothes for school, healthy food alternatives and diapers! You have to learn a new language - Baby Talk and not internally cringe, when you have to ask another human being if they've made a poo poo in their pants or not. You have to engage in serious debates with an angry, vocabulary-stunted, midget about why he can not go play in the yard with no pants or underpants on. Your wife's sexy boobs are taken away from you and given to the angry midget and the little bastards smiles at you, when he nurses, because he knows what he's taken from you. Tiny objects disappear from around the house and then show up three days later, deposited in baby-shit in a diaper! Insurance! Babysitters! Lunch Programs! Little League! The Ever Present Threat of Diarrhea!

You stop being an adult and a human being. You become a parent.
If you were ever cool or knowledgeable or hip, you become a worrywort, a wives-tale swapper and a disciplinarian. Once, you had "freedom", now you have "responsibilities".

I used to see nothing but the negative points of having children. The things I listed above and more. But I was always aware of the benefits too. The joy on a child's face when they figure something out. The sound of their laughter. Their sweet kisses. Or when you carry them around, while they sleep on your shoulder. Or the precious moment when a child unintentionally says something vulgar, racist or blasphemous. These are the magical moments that balance out all the drawbacks.

I get it.

I see the pictures of these old school chums and their new families and I understand that their lives are dramatically different from mine. I think we would both say that the paths that we've chosen have benefits and drawbacks. I know that even though the choices I have made have brought me new and exciting things, I am probably too old now to meet a girl, date, marry and have children at a reasonable age. (Assuming I have a child within the next four years, I will be 56 when the kid is 18. An old man, raising a rebellious kid, who is considering breaking my hip for me. And that's assuming that the years of red meat consumption and alcohol don't kill me before the kid graduates from high school.) In order for me to have the fighting chance that these other families have, I would had to have had my kids, a few years ago. Now, I am at a disadvantage.

My friends might tell me that the lives that they leave now, as parents preclude the adventures that I've been on. The places that I've traveled to. The wild spasms of irresponsibility that I've enjoyed. The incredible sex that I've enjoyed with many beautiful women.

Sometimes I want a family. Sometimes, I want kids.
Other times, I want to stay out late and produce my dirty, bullshit comedy shows for my audiences. Which is, I guess, a way of saying, that some days my life is pretty great. Other days it can be a little empty.

Comparing my own life against the context-less holiday pictures that I see on Facebook is a dangerous trap to fall into. Who knows, one of those kids might be the Anti-Christ! But who can tell from the pictures in the Holiday photo album? Every kid looks angelic and sweet on Christmas morning. Even the Anti-Christ. And when the Little Bastard grows to pubescence and he breaks the seventh seal and unleashes the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, spreading fear, disease, pestilence, war and death across the land - I'll be glad that I'm only fleeing in terror for myself. And not fleeing in terror for my whole family.

Cheers,
Mr.B